Editor’s note: This is the 28th story in the Register’s Top 50 series.

From its inception in 1826 - when it was called the General Hospital Society of Connecticut — Yale New Haven Hospital has been at the forefront of medical technology.

In 1949, for instance, William Sewell Jr., a Yale Medical School student, built the first “artificial heart” out of pieces from an Erector Set, laboratory supplies and a valve from a toy noisemaker.

Sewell’s idea was to build a tool for cardiac surgeons to use in laboratory experiments — a pump, powered by air pressure, to be used as an artificial heart. He implemented the invention on the right side of a dog’s heart, and the early experiments circulated blood for more than an hour and the dog recovered.

The heart pump would lead to later advancements in cardiac surgery and, ultimately, to the development of an artificial heart, first used in a transplant on Barney Clark in 1982. The first heart transplant in Connecticut was performed at Yale New Haven in 1984.

More technological advancements would follow from that 13-bed General Hospital Society of Connecticut at what would be known as Grace New Haven Hospital until 1965, when it became Yale New Haven Hospital. In 1954, the hospital unveiled the first high-energy radiation treatment unit in Connecticut. In 1957, Grace New Haven became the first hospital to use fetal heart monitoring, as well as the first to use peritoneal dialysis in Connecticut.

The world’s first intensive care unit for newborns was established in 1960. Three years later, the first linear accelerator for cancer treatment in Connecticut was founded at the hospital.

In 1966, the hospital developed a phrenic nerve pacemaker that allowed quadriplegics to breathe without a respirator. The first hospital-based newborn screening program for sickle cell anemia was introduced in 1972; and the first insulin infusion pump for diabetes in 1979.

In more recent years, the medical breakthroughs have become even more high-tech. In 1995, Yale New Haven became the first hospital in Connecticut to launch an Internet website, in conjunction with the Special Olympic World Games, which were held in New Haven.

In 2003, the hospital became the first in New England to transplant a Jarvik2000 ventricular assist device into a failing heart. Five years later, the hospital became the first in Connecticut to perform an “invisible incision” appendectomy, known as Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery, or NOTES, in which surgery is performed through the body’s natural openings.

And within the last 10 years, Yale New Haven has been on the forefront of something called kidney-paired exchange, in which somebody who needs a kidney transplant, but who is not a match with a willing relative donor, can get a kidney from a matching donor who faces a similar situation.

Cutting edge continues

Now a hospital with more than 1,500 beds, a nearly 13,000-member staff, satellite facilities (the Hospital of Saint Raphael was acquired in 2012) and the renowned Smilow Cancer Center, Yale New Haven served more than 75,000 people as inpatients in 2017.

But as modern life continues to evolve, so do hospital services. Think about, for instance, those who have recently had surgery, have the scar to prove it, and need to make a follow-up visit with the doctor.

Except they’re juggling work and kids and Little League practices, and maybe live 45 minutes from the hospital and there’s simply not enough time in the day.

A virtual video visit with the doctor would be the perfect solution.

And since October 2016, it has been just that for organ transplant patients and others at Yale New Haven.

Postsurgical patients now are able to chat with their doctor via computer, from their home, and accomplish just about everything they could in a regular office visit in about 15 minutes.

“It’s been something we’d been developing, just coming up with a pathway to do something to help patients,” said Dr. David Mulligan, chief of Yale Medicine Transplant & Immunology and director of the Yale New Haven Transplantation Center.

“It’s a way to use technology, securely, to have visits with medical providers — doctors, nurse practitioners — as part of a team. They can review recent X-rays, imaging that have been done, and to be able to have that visit where the patient can be anywhere that’s more convenient to them,” Mulligan said.

“It saves them from having to leave work, get babysitters or rides, miss part of their workday, or make that drive and park for a visit, when we’re just doing a simple follow-up,” he said.

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Patients are automatically entered into the Epic system with their first visit, providing them with a record for various care (inpatient, ambulatory, physician practices, and more) and also allows them to track their medical care through a secure website. To engage in the virtual video program under Epic, patients can access what is called “My Chart,” where they can also engage the video chat option and be connected with their doctor.

Mulligan said a study by the hospital showed that patients would spend from 4½-7 hours a week commuting back and forth, sitting in waiting rooms, not to mention paying sometimes exorbitant parking fees. Now, virtual video visits can be done from a smartphone, sitting on a couch in one’s own living room. And patients have said they feel more connected through such visits, because the doctors were looking them right in the eye, rather than turning, typing and looking at a computer screen during most of the visits.

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"It was really an eye-opening experience of something more patient-centered, that was very impactful for patients that need to have frequent visits, but don't need to physically be there," he said.

Yale New Haven Hospital was the first in New England to conduct video visits with patients, and it is also believed to be the first in the United States to use this technology for follow-up visits with transplant patients.